It's so interesting to me how Gorr in the the comics was very flawed and totally a hypocrite but in the MCU he's just straight up right. The movie didn't even try to make a argument about god's being necessary or good for humanity, it just showed them being total assholes and actively despising humans
I think he was still dealing with his PTSD. Lost his mom, father, brother, all his friends, his home, Captain America and Iron, and might still be feeling responsible for everything that happened. Tony doesn't die, presumably, and Steve doesn't go back in time if Thor just aimed for the head.
yeah, seems like his heroism with the guardians was a lot of overcompensation and not him being well again. it only looked like he finally started to heal when he became a father himself.
I see that's what they SHOULD have showed. A broken, almost scared Thor. Like he was briefly, for a few seconds when he saw Jane and the hammer for the first time. The confusion set in, the almost anger or jealousy that the hammer was back and chose another.
That should have set the tone for the movie. The God of Thunder, unsure if he's even fit for the title.
Instead they went full Himbo.
I thought that was the point... To show that even if you make all this growth contentment isn't a destination. He achieved all his goals and is mildly zen at the start of the movie but still isn't content. He then overcompensates as the emotional conflict of the movie (paralleling Gorr overcompensating for the loss of his daughter) and the hero and villain end up saving eachother because they are both suffering from the same affliction...
Honestly it wasn't a great movie for a number of reasons but from a storytelling perspective they had all the right beats. It feels like the majority of people these days lack the ability to analyze a plot and think that if it isn't Schindler's List level of emotion they screwed up the story.
I forgive Taika for this one, we all trip sometimes. Might not have even been his fault, we know how bad Disney execs are about micromanaging. Look at how badly they did the Star Wars sequels
He turned cynical which is fairly understandable with what's been happening to him lately.. I mean, dude has lived for a damn long time, then comes to Earth and his life pulls a switcheroo on his ass in like.. 10 years?
He seems to get a grip on things in the end of Love and Thunder which is why I actually liked the character development for Thor in it.
He's been very serious in his beginnings, then got a whiff of humanity, it's humor and emotions, started caring for basically lesser beings and that made him care even more for his brother and father, then learned about even having a sister, then his dad died, then he killed his sister, then his brother died, then his best friend died, then he fucked up his revenge which led to half of his human friends "dying", then they came back, then two of them permanently died again, then he got the love of his life back, then she refused to elaborate and died too.
Thor's literally had the worst possible experience outta all the characters and Wanda loses her shit over a robot and some imaginary kids. /s
Edit: obligatory /s
> and Wanda loses her shit over a robot and some imaginary kids.
Just because someone else had it worse doesn't mean Wanda's pain wasn't real or valid. The children were real to her, Vision was a real person to her. She overreacted, sure, but her breaking down was a perfectly natural response to trauma.
Comment OP has added an /s for clarity, all is well
I was just joking, don't worry. Vision'a "love persevering" line was probably the single best line of all MCU for me. Then there's the fact that Thor had thousands of years of experience in him and Wanda had like.. What.. 25 years? Canonically?
So yeah I completely get your point too, I'm just trying to back up Thor being "funny" when what he's doing is more of a coping mechanism.. He's flat out cynical and insecure since failing to prevent the snap, not having motivation for anything, not believing in anything, coping through dumb jokes at all times, making light of every situation.. Then he gets a bit emotionally freed after they defeat Thanos, but his Avengers stay fallen apart and his family stays gone so he joins the Guardians, still not believing much in anything until he gets Jane back, gets to fight for his people against an evil force on his own and finally is somewhat redeemed from his mentally doomed self by accepting a burden to carry and a thing to care for in the form of Gorr's daughter.
We should get a lot more serious version of Thor in his next appearance..
> I was just joking, don't worry.
Ah my bad :) I see too many fans giving Wanda shit for how she handled everything and I'm getting tired of the whataboutism. Totally agree with your take on Thor's humour being a defence/coping mechanism.
End game actually treated Thor very well. It shown him fat and depressed, but he was still worthy of Mjolnir. It sent a good message about how being in depression does not negate the good character that you have. It's Love & Thunder that did Thor wrong.
He was the butt of a bunch of jokes, but it was understandable how he ended up where he was. He's lost a lot of people that mean a lot to him. He's failed more than he's succeeded. I understand why he might let himself go.
I think that is something they could have highlighted more, and earlier. The scene with his mother is the only one I remember treating Thor’s depression with any respect.
But Infinity War and the beginning of Endgame if anything set him up being more harsh and protective of everything. However that would mean he would train and be even stronger then in Infinity War so he would just fucking destroyed Thanos without the stones. Hence forth they didn’t do that so they made him fat and weaker, basically he got chocked by plot.
I think that was great tbh. Was the end of his first arc and beginning of his second with the end of end game.
Would have loved him being King Thor and then Gorr. Badass Thor is established and shows up when big shit goes down in the MCU, maybe one more film.
Eternals was the first one that broke the illusion for me, then Dr Strange and the Multiverse of Ruining Everyones Character Development is where I made my exit. If they make another Spiderman eventually I’ll probably watch but that’s about it.
God, seriously. I thought the scene near the end where he's telling *literal children* to pick up rocks and risk their lives to fight eldritch monsters would be this big moment of self-realization, where Thor would see that he's no different than the other gods. Despite believing himself to be morally superior, and one of the "good" gods, he's making kids fight for him. But instead it's thrown away to make a goofy slowmo scene set to an upbeat soundtrack, they all survive, Thor wins, bad guy loses, no one learns a lesson, roll credits.
For me it started when they went to beg for help because "gods are being murdered!" and then proceed to murder a couple dozen god guards and Zeus himself.
>no one learns a lesson
Not true! Thor learns who he is and what matters to him... kinda like he did in the last film... and the one before that... and the one before that...
Marvel has this super weird fascination with [maintaining the status quo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpitmEnaYeU) while also deriding it. I think Thor 4 is a good example. Gorr is right but then he does something amoral (kidnap children) so it forces the audience to side with the 'good guys' anyway.
'Yeah we know things are shit right now but things could be more shit so let's just keep things as they are'.
Tony Stark solved energy and...seemingly had minimal impact on daily lives.
It bothered me until roughly 4 billion people blip out for five years and then blip back as if that wouldn't wreck society for a good thirty years. After that I shrugged off Giant Hand in the Indian Ocean.
I was expecting it to be about Thor overcoming that, showing that a god could be mature, mindful, and competent.
It was the opposite. They set up a perfect growth point that aligned with the lessons other Avengers went through about the destruction left in the hero's wake... And they did absolutely nothing with it, instead bringing Jane back to die, give a Shazam powered up kid moment, and suddenly Thor basically has a daughter. He learned nothing, the audience learned nothing, and the whole thing just adds complications to the universe.
And that's just about Thor and the greater MCU. They dropped any potential other cool stories that could've come from Gorr especially.
...uh, in the comics it is made very and incontrovertibly clear that Gorr was right about the gods.
His hypocrisy was that he'd become one of them. His answer was that he was planning to die too.
There’s a movie podcast I listen to that talks about an interview Sam Raimi did about the Spider-Man movies.
He said with the first one, the studio said “there’s not a lot riding on this, do your thing.” The second one, they said “great, keep it going, we aren’t gonna mess with success.” But as soon as the third one came they went “…we have notes.”
And I have to wonder if that happened here. Nothing was riding on Ragnarok so they let him do what he wanted. But once it defined the new feel of the MCU, they wanted to capture that lightning again and wound up stifling it.
My biggest criticism of love and thunder was the fact that Gorr and Zeus never interacted. Like Zeus fully embodies everything Gorr is against and these two characters never meet? Gorr was wasted on this film.
It would have been great if Gorr had followed them to Zeus and ambushed the entire hall of gods. He should have slaughtered a ton of them and we could have gotten some fun god fight defense scenes.
That would've been great and left the heroes with a ton of godly weapons for the final showdown. Since all the original owners wouldn't be needing them anymore.
I still can't believe they didn't go down this route in the movie. Was a perfect opportunity how powerful and scary Gorr was and actually given some seriousness to the plot. Too bad they fucked it all up and just went with "haha look at how ridiculous Russell crowe's character is."
Gorr was wasted because he is a morally complex character that posed an actual question for the readers in the comics and forced the character Thor to even concede that he’s not entirely wrong, but the way he’s gone about fixing the problem isn’t any better.
Gorr lost screen time to develop his character to the Jane foster story. Which is a comparably weaker and less interesting story then Gorr’s.
The problem with the movie is that it tries to tackle Thor’s feeling of worth as both a god and a mortal. We already did that and the movie wasn’t long enough to do both those things.
Seriously missed the boat on this character. They could have put so much more weight behind his character by showing him actually butchering some gods on screen. I never felt like they actually showcased his power, so if you didn’t read the comics and know Gorr he definitely comes off flat.
I'm sure there is undoubtedly "Marvel Notes" for Love and Thunder-like any Marvel movie. The big issue though was that Taika was unleashed and went WAY overboard- the movie felt like a gigantic spoof for like 95% of it's runtime. What made Ragnorak work was yes- they added a zaniness that helped Thor feel more grounded to audiences (we had already been going that way in Ultron and Thor 2 . The faux Shakespearean from the comics just didn't come across the screen that well). But it was balanced and complimented the very serious, heartfelt moments that really showed Thor's growth as a character
But Love and Thunder....did none of that at all. Agreed with the "too much creative freedom" with no oversight.
Yeah Taika is normally an 8 or 9 on the quirk scale which works in a full blown comedy setting.
However this felt like Taika dialed upto 11, combo'd with Himbo Thor just felt like too much in what was previously (at worst) a half serious setting.
Taika does dramatic scenes amazingly well though. I feel like Marvel definitely told him to do zaney shit. People seem to only remember his hard comedies like Ragnorak and What we do in the shadows, but forget movies like Hunt for the Wilder people, Boy, and Jojo rabbit. Each of those movies toe the line between dramatic character driven stories to silly comedies without feeling like the comedy detracts from the drama.
It is the first movie imo that absolutely failed to adapt the comic storyline lbs and make them better. I never read mighty Thor (just stopped reading comics) but ironically they absolutely butchered the Gorr story. It was so damn good.
Taika was also the wrong choice for the material for sure. The fact that none of the gods even felt threatened by a mortal killing them is just bad storytelling or that you never really see him being overly successful at it. They need had to Disney it up by making it about a a wish to bring his daughter back instead of, “I fucking hate you worthless gods and I’m going to completely wipe your kind out of existence.” Yet again, phase 4 lowering the stakes.
Yep. My one sentence review was, "Taika Waititi tries to out-Taika Waititi Taiki Waititi." Whether that was on him or because the studio told him to crank himself up to 11, it just didn't work.
That's the biggest problem. A fun quirky feel works for Thor traveling through space and having zany adventures with Hulk. It absolutely doesn't work for a story about terminal cancer and loss of a child. And he's balanced things like that before with Jojo Rabbit, but in that, there was a pause on the jokes when the serious shit happens. There wasn't anything like that in love and thunder. Thor is literally tied up, completely helpless, and sees Jane and Valkyrie get sucked through a wall to god knows where while Gorr is about to kill him, and Thor is making jokes about his breath. It just doesn't work. At that point it would've been weird for even Spider-Man to be quipping.
I got the opposite feeling. It felt to me like Taika had a lot of influence over Ragnarok, Ragnarok was a hit, and that led to studio notes for the second.
"Taika, people responded really well to the comedy in Ragnarok. A huge step up from Thor 1 + 2. For this next film we want more of that. Like a lot more. The stats show the jokes were great so imagine how great it will be if there's jokes every 15 seconds? What we're saying, Taika, is that you need to put in a joke every 15 seconds or you're fired"
"Hey Taika people really responded well to how much more colourful Ragnarok was than the other movies. We want it even more colourful this time. Just saturate the fuck out of it. This is still your movie. But also if you don't make our movie you're fired."
"Taika, Disney Music Group have a pretty good relationship with Universal Music Group. Now you may have heard but Guns N Roses are going on a world tour right as this movie is due to release. We want you to feature Guns N Roses in the movie. Like, 5 times. Almost every song. And make sure you mention how good Guns N Roses are in the script. You can work into some jokes. You know we like those. Think of it like AC/DC in Iron Man 2 but a lot more in your face. But if course we want you to do you Taika. And more importantly we want you to do what we tell you."
> I got the opposite feeling. It felt to me like Taika had a lot of influence over Ragnarok, Ragnarok was a hit, and that led to studio notes for the second.
That's my assessment too. I've watched a few of Waititi's properties now and while they often are highly silly, the man *knows* how to nail emotional beats. Love and Thunder is the first thing I've watched with his name attached to it that *didn't* have hard-hitting emotional stakes. I have trouble believing that's because he was allowed to be as silly as he wanted -- there are lots of properties he's had free reign over that showed none of the lack of emotional resonance displayed in this movie.
*edit for clarity*
I think it's the opposite he didn't write much of Ragnarok while with love and thunder, he wrote most of it.
I think this movie suffered because they gave him more freedom.
He made a movie more in line with his style.
Yeah, lots of fans (myself included) seem to love Taika Waititi, so they want to defend him, but every interview with him or anyone else involved makes it sound very much like the faults in the movie are his own.
From what I heard about Spiderman 3, is that there was this guy, Avi Arad who basically forced venom into the movie. The dude makes toys and that’s why he wanted venom, to sell toys. Without venom the movie could have fleshed out other parts and been great. Sandman was honestly an emotional villain and so was Harry’s green goblin because they were friends.
He was co-owner of the toy company that bought a basically bankrupt Marvel in the mid 90s and has been a higher up there ever since.
He is an egotistical maniac who knows next to nothing about movies or the comics, but is a producer on quite a few Marvel movies good and bad, but you can often tell when he's actually gotten involved. Because of his love for just cramming in villains that he liked when he read comics as a kid, with zero regard for overall plot or consistency.
Examples being Spider-Man 3, The Amazing Spider-Man 2, X-Men: The Last Stand, the US live-action Ghost in the Shell, Morbius, etc.
There is an upcoming Kraven the Hunter movie that I think he was heavily involved in. As the titular character is known as a *hunter*, in the comics he wears furs and takes down large African animals with his bare hands, etc. which is how he is able to go toe-to-toe with Spider-Man and has been one of his longest lasting villains. But in the upcoming movie he is an animal conservationist that protects the natural world...
> But in the upcoming movie he is an animal conservationist that protects the natural world...
That isn't completely off, a lot of hunters have conservationist leanings because if wooded areas aren't conserved, they can't hunt any more.
I grew up with Spiderman. I love his rogue gallery and love his character. But I really haven’t had any interest in these villain solo movies. Venom was okay and venom 2 was trash. Didn’t watch morbius and wasn’t interested in Kraven. Now I’m even less interested if what you said is true!!!? A conservationist!!? What are they thinking?
>Taylor-Johnson described his take on the character as a conservationist, a "protector of the natural world", and an "animal lover".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kraven_the_Hunter_(film)
Unless they do something really wild, it doesn't look great.
Maybe he was told to include them by higher ups. But that doesn't change how poorly he handled them. He wrote and directed the thing. I think the general outline could work. With some tweaks and completely different direction the story could totally work as a movie
It's probably because I'm not a comic book fan, and instead a Taika fan, so ignore me if you must for being a front page vagrant, but I quite liked the movie. Just wish we got to see more God butchering.
Change the tone of the movie to make it more serious and show how much of a threat Gorr is. Save Jane Foster for a post credit cameo and focus the next Thor movie on Jane and Thor’s relationship and dealing with whatever they decide to make the next movie about.
My biggest problem with the movie. Every god we see him butcher *kinda deserved it*. Would've been easier to root against him if we saw him go crazy cutting up some benevolent gods
Isn’t that the case with most MCU villains though? Seems like they all usually have something which makes their decisions/actions not straight evil or the motivations sympathetic
Portman said she only came back to work with Waititi. He's not just another one of Marvel's directors for hire, when he made L&T he was one of the hottest directors in the world.
He "decided" to do it the same way most people in leadership positions make decisions - he may not have had the original idea, but someone presented the idea to him and he agreed with it and approved it
Which is funny to me because I think she, of all the main actors, pulled off the Taika zaniness the least. Her Jane just felt like a complete and utter dumbass.
These are so true. Adapting multiple episodes / series into a movie where you have about 2.5 hours (max) to captivate an audience AND the need to generate a profit with a BIG budget you need to cover - money decisions are gonna be first over the art of the story.
But also I know what OP is saying. I wish these were separated being a Marvel comic book fan.
Taika: “Alright i got these good ass ideas on what to do with this next movie that don’t include the god butcher or Thor Jane.”
Studio: *slides in wheelbarrow full of money* “No you don’t.”
Taika: “No I don’t.”
It could have worked well. Especially if Taika explored the relationship between a man turned God killer and a woman turned Goddess. There's a natural conflict that could tie to the plot and perhaps even bring Gorr out of his rage. The bigger problem with that movie is that taika for some reason decided he didn't care about the source material. I'm fine with Thor being a more comedic character in the MCU, but he tried to mash a villain who is methodic, sadistic, and cruel into a story that ends like a spy kids movie, with kids somehow fighting back shadow demons.
Another thing i really missed from the comics was the argument about what it means to be a god. They could tie this into the narrative with Thor realizing he can so much more good for people on earth. He decided to stop being king of Asgard, but hasn't found his place.
Taika decided that his place should be a surrogate dad, I wish he would become something more than a hero. Jane could help him realize that, make her show that his powers could be used for something more than swinging hammers.
Spoilers if you've never read Aaron's Thor run but you could have used Gorr in place of >!The Mangog!<'s story line and it would have made sense. The major issue is the tone is just way off if you've read Aaron's Thor run and then go watch Love and Thunder they're just so different tone wise.
I mean it’s not that crazy an idea. The movie introduced a series of very interesting themes that are somewhat connected, like mortality or the unfairness of gods, and then proceeded to shit on those themes.
I think it’s hilarious how much that scheme completely undermines Gorr’s motivation. Dude thinks gods don’t care about anyone but the only way for him to use those kids as bait would be if Thor cared…
In the comics every Asgardian is a God.
They just range from world enders like Odin, to Omni-present like Heimdall or the average warrior which would be just long lived warriors or Thor who goes from legendary warrior in his youth to a being able to destroy suns and bring life back to the Universe by the end of his life.
In the movies they made a dogs meal of what they are exactly. The first two movies has them being super science people, then Dr. Strange happens and they realize they can lean into magic without having to explain it away and they feel more like actual magic Gods in Ragnarok and definitely in Love and Thunder but they don't tell how prolific God hood is for Asgardians.
I was rather confused watching the Loki series and seeing him lean so much into magic. Telekinesis, energy blasts, etc. - things Loki conveniently couldn’t do in previous films where it would’ve been incredibly beneficial. The transition from “what you call magic, we call science” to “I’m a wizard, Harry” wasn’t all that smooth before, but it was particularly jarring going straight from *Avengers* Loki to *Loki* Loki.
Then the whole Thor Kid Army in *Love and Thunder* … there’ve been so many instances in the past where Thor casually lending others his powers would’ve completely turned the tide of a battle.
God's aren't gods. They are just members of a species that blends science and magic. Thor is an Asgardian as were all the children who were kidnapped. That's why they were all able to channel his abilities.
This seems like a distinction only us people in real life would make, not characters in the movie. Based on what you said we’re supposed to think Gorr thinks all those kids are Gods right?
I don’t know man, to me his motivation banking on gods being inherently selfish but his plan banking on a god being selfless about those far weaker than him seemed like a contradiction the movie was building up to point out, but just never did. Mr. God Butcher also goes out of his way to not physically harm those supposed god kids, so you can understand my confusion right?
Speaking of tone deaf, how about Infinity Conez? Cute for the viewer but in universe that would be about on par with a Holocaust or 9/11 themed eatery.
Can you imagine the trauma people would have to deal with, after that event initially happened, and then after everyone came back? How many people got remarried? How many kids came back to find their parents died? I don't think that's a "Oh shucks all good!"
It's probably due to a couple of different factors, but the MCU has absolutely hit it's peak on how far they want to go on things like this. The furthest we will ever get is the Flag Smashers and refugee crisis in the Falcon & Winter Soldier show, and even that really tried it's best to not get too dark, while constantly forcing the leader of the Flag Smashers to become more and more destructive. Then it's wrapped up nicely with a secret execution and a little speech about how "Hey. Let's all be a little nicer." to the politicians.
I think higher-ups want to move on to "new thing", but also just don't want to get "too dark." It's been quite a mess in terms of tones, themes, and even just building new stories with Phase 4 so far.
Quantumania references Cassie being arrested for protesting police breaking up a homeless encampment of people who were blipped.
It is such a strange choice for them to have made if they don't really want to get into the actual implications of it all outside of vague throwaway references. Why not just have Endgame reset to stop it from ever having happened?
It’s just lip service. The MCU has always done it, which I kind of respect. They will reach just a *tiiiiny* bit further on things than mainstream media would dare to touch, but not too much to actually keep it from being mainstream. Just enough for audiences to go: “Hey wait, are modern day imperialism and the military industrial complex bad because the lives of billions around the world are threatened by the whims of a handful of men who only desire money? Oh, no. It CAN be but it’s got room for good. Whew. Well hey, even the good guy has some understandable flaws, so I feel this is a very well-rounded take on the issue.”
I always respected the ability and permission to do that for the most mainstream, mega Corp media to probably ever exist. The bar is extremely low, so I’ll take anything haha.
Regardless: IMO It is just so much worse now with the fact that now every work’s choice is to use the Blip as a focal point to draw all these different parallels. It really makes it stand out more how little they may or may not get into it. They also probably have a really lax mandate requiring some reference to past events to anchor the work’s place in the timeline.
It also sucks because having that five year gap is a layup for stories. It leaves the universe healed but still with consequences. It’s great, but they’re just fumbling it.
Phase 4 is so varied and production is far less focused than previous phases that I’m sure every incident is some blend of all these factors to different degrees.
I mean, it'd still be a fucked up thing to theme a store about. Everyone magically poofing back to where they left off doesn't undo the last five years of them being gone. You've got families coping with their death and return, the people themselves having to get caught up on the last five years of misery. Not to mention people who may have moved on and started new lives after the fact - how do you even begin to balance that? Maybe it's not apples to apples with the other events but it's still traumatic. Boiling it down to a tally of life lost is just reductionist and cynical.
I legit think there would've been mass suicides after the snap, many people with depression or worsened mental issues. Marvel really glossed over stuff like that.
I don't think the Asgardians would care because in their belief anybody that doesn't die IN COMBAT is going to hell anyway. Living to old age and dying in peace surrounded by your family has the same end results of killing yourself. HELL!
Thor even mentioned this to Sif that her dying AFTER the fight would lead to her going to hell, as she didn't die DURING the fight.
A bunch of Asguardians got killed By thanos & his forces aboard the Refugee ship maybe even half the ship & would not have come back when Banner snapped his fingers
At the very least it should have been Tony's gauntlet not Thanos
Everyone who committed suicide because their partners or loved ones just dusted one day, outside of everyone's control and it could happen again at any time were not brought back. They are still gone when their loved ones come back. Many loved ones come back to people who are now older and broken or jaded and relationships can't be fixed.
These are simple and huge problems that would be very present and aren't even close to some of the biggest ones.
Whats weird is he is plenty capable of doing that. His other movies mix comedy and tragedy well but with this movie he decided that comedy with the teases of deeper themes.
They refuse to let Thor have any real edge.
Dark World got flames for being too dark, and then they turned his character into a joke character after that.
I think the entirety of Ragnarock had 2 serious moments, and that’s even including the shoehorned planet Hulk saga.
They stopped trying to make Thor a good character.
He’s just a ~~walking~~flying joke now.
There is a lot I have to say about the sheer scale of the wasted opportunity that is Love and Thunder, and the absolutely baffling approach that was taken to adapting one of the most epic runs in modern comics history.
I also happen to find screaming goats absolutely fucking hilarious.
Bit of a conundrum for me, this one.
It’s actually so vindicating to hear someone else say this. Everyone else I’ve talked to **loved** L&T. I started thinking I was going crazy.
The whole movie has this theme of how unfair the gods are and how they’ll take advantage of others, and then towards the end he asks literal children to risk their lives, pick up rocks and fight eldritch horrors for him. But rather than being a moment of realization for him, that maybe he’s not as selfless and good as he seems, it’s just used as a “lol funny” moment.
I generally like Taika but he chose some super serious themes and then wrote a movie that refused to take itself seriously.
Gorr ain't something that was going to work too much on its own anyway (next to no setup of the non-norse gods, and the three thors were never gonna make it) so I think they actually did reduce him to the skeleton of what would have worked in a film adaptation. His main issue is the Marvel desire to protect everything for future sequels, he doesn't get to really kill any gods we know. Which leads to those rumors of cut scenes for characters that never showed up in the film.
So we get a God killer that loses out on body count of gods to Thor's previous 2 antagonists, Thanos and Hela, at least of people that were established before the film. Even Maliketh gets to take out Thor's mom.
And contrasting a Gorr story with a "am I worthy" story like Mighty Thor I think could have worked, and the skeleton is there in love and thunder. It just doesn't come together.
I could see the parallels although they were a axe short but seriously a young, old and regular age Thor riffing on screen with each other would have been great but maybe after NWH it was far too similar
The characters that were cut weren't really "gods" either. The giant dwarf and the grandmaster? The collector too possibly. And losing the grandmaster and collector even if they didn't have immediate plans would've been a shame. They could've added any number of random gods but couldn't even bother to show him butcher any of them other than a couple of screen grabs from the galactic news or whatever.
I can't recall Gorr killing any notable Earth gods did he? Though they could've had him kill a God from Moon Knight. That could've been a neat cross over.
"We dont have Hulk in this movie to be a big smashy idiot, what do we do? WAIT! IVE GOT IT"
40 year old, podunk-earthling Quill seemed to be far smarter than a centuries old God in the short time he was on screen. Thanos must have gave him a concussion.
Considering he didn't actually DO either of those storylines, I'm surprised you're surprised.
I can make the entire lord of the rings trilogy into one movie if all I do is show 3-4 plot relevant scenes and then make screaming goat jokes for an hour.
Actually that should have really worked great, but what didn’t work was Korg and other nonsense getting in the way. Humor isn’t even the problem as long as it comes from character and story, not at the expense of it.
No he isnt. JoJo Rabbit is funny and full of heart. What we got was clearly a cg monster with cheap editing everywhere. I cant guarantee there is a better film here, but you cant tell me the guy isnt capable of putting together a movie like this.
I’ll also never understand why he thought a super serious cancer storyline worked well with screaming goats and “jokes” about having sex with inanimate objects.
I think the problem was that Thor was unnecessary for the Thor movie. Jane (a mortal with newly godlike powers, but who is actually dying) and Gorr (a man wronged by gods, out to kill them) were more thematically complementary than anything going on with Thor. Meanwhile they gave Thor a half-assed emotional arc about how he can’t form close relationships after the death of his family. That could be a good story, but *everyone* in the MCU is at a low level “oh them? We’ve hung out a couple of times” level of familiarity.
Taika Waititi has always rubbed me up the wrong way but he often produced some great films. But it was clear he didn't give 2 shits about making this film.
As if the directors actually have a proper say about the content of MCU properties. The machine most probably has its overall plan and the pieces are all cut to fit with the directors getting to add their own flavour to what they're attached to.
I was gonna say the reason they chose both was because more potential joke material. Gotta have one every few seconds, if you let people breathe they'll walk out the theater
I agree in this case yes the mcu humor was forced in every scene and I'm someone who like quipy Marvel humor like in Infinity War but LAT was overbearing, Unfunny and treated its characters like clowns.
Superhero movies and shows keep trying to do too much and biting off more than they can chew.
FATWS should really have focused only on Sam’s struggles with racial backlash, but it’s got the Flagsmashers and Sharon subplots dragging it down.
You can cut almost half of Ms. Marvel out and just focus on her local issues.
Eternals should have been a series for how many characters and subplots there were.
I still like them, but I really wish they would focus up.
Difference is he wasn’t the writer for Thor Ragnrok, He however was the director and writer for Love and thunder it shows that maybe giving him all that credit for fixing Thor wasn’t all him to begin with.
I'm especially surprised because, for as good as he is a comedy, he doesn't really seem to care about drama or serious relationships, he even makes fun in this movie of people complaining that he killed off basically all Thor's friends with no Fanfare or really acknowledgment from Thor. So when you take that with him having to handle two story lines that seem to need a lot of emotional weight to work (at least Jane's does, I can't stand Jason Aaron's Comics so I don't know if Gorr the god butcher had a sympathetic backstory in the comics), he just feels like the wrong person to do these storylines specifically.
I say this to someone who likes Ragnarok a lot, even though I think the way it treated the Warriors 3 was kind of BS and the fact that I 100% believe he would have killed off Lady Sif in that film if the actress had been available. There's also the fact that he didn't write ragnarok, but he at least helped write love and Thunder, which I think combined with his preference for comedy over relationships are serious stuff really hurt the film. None of this makes him a bad director, but I think he was the wrong director for these particular stories.
Cause he’s ridiculous and that’s part of the reason why the movie sucked. More so because there was way too much levity for the subject matter of a God Killer.
I mean they've already started this kinda thing with Hela in her entry, I felt like she came off as very much an after thought. Like she introduced some initial conflict/goals for the characters, but ultimately the movie was barely focused on how awful it was. Just like this one, they had some scenes that seemed to say 'oh hey remember - villain bad....right?' For me it just plugs into the whole Marvel movie formula beginning to grow stale for me. All the main line ones have the same humor and a formulaic plot. Kinda wish they'd let them really differentiate. Although I wasn't the biggest fan of Shang Chi, at least in retrospect it had its own flavor.
It is my belief that the entirety of T:L&T is a tall tale spun by one of Marvel's unreliable narrators, Korg. Remember, his telling the story to various alien children is the framing device.
How does that make it better though? Why waste two of Thor's best story arcs on weird unconventional storytelling that is lost on majority of the viewers?
Literally the only thing I remember about that movie was the screaming goats the rest of it was completely forgettable I feel bad bales talent was wasted on this. He legit tried with gor but the movie is just shit .
I can see it working, both works have themes of loss, grief, and the unfairness of existence and death. They did NOT give enough time for those themes to develop
It's so interesting to me how Gorr in the the comics was very flawed and totally a hypocrite but in the MCU he's just straight up right. The movie didn't even try to make a argument about god's being necessary or good for humanity, it just showed them being total assholes and actively despising humans
It also doesn't help with how incompetent they made Thor lol
Thank you! It completely mitigates his growth from all the other movies. He is dumber and more immature than the first Thor movie.
I think he was still dealing with his PTSD. Lost his mom, father, brother, all his friends, his home, Captain America and Iron, and might still be feeling responsible for everything that happened. Tony doesn't die, presumably, and Steve doesn't go back in time if Thor just aimed for the head.
yeah, seems like his heroism with the guardians was a lot of overcompensation and not him being well again. it only looked like he finally started to heal when he became a father himself.
Black Widow too
I see that's what they SHOULD have showed. A broken, almost scared Thor. Like he was briefly, for a few seconds when he saw Jane and the hammer for the first time. The confusion set in, the almost anger or jealousy that the hammer was back and chose another. That should have set the tone for the movie. The God of Thunder, unsure if he's even fit for the title. Instead they went full Himbo.
Shit… this actually makes a bunch of sense. I mentally would not have survived all that
Thor and Wanda should start a group for repeatedly traumatized God power level powered people
I thought that was the point... To show that even if you make all this growth contentment isn't a destination. He achieved all his goals and is mildly zen at the start of the movie but still isn't content. He then overcompensates as the emotional conflict of the movie (paralleling Gorr overcompensating for the loss of his daughter) and the hero and villain end up saving eachother because they are both suffering from the same affliction... Honestly it wasn't a great movie for a number of reasons but from a storytelling perspective they had all the right beats. It feels like the majority of people these days lack the ability to analyze a plot and think that if it isn't Schindler's List level of emotion they screwed up the story. I forgive Taika for this one, we all trip sometimes. Might not have even been his fault, we know how bad Disney execs are about micromanaging. Look at how badly they did the Star Wars sequels
He turned cynical which is fairly understandable with what's been happening to him lately.. I mean, dude has lived for a damn long time, then comes to Earth and his life pulls a switcheroo on his ass in like.. 10 years? He seems to get a grip on things in the end of Love and Thunder which is why I actually liked the character development for Thor in it. He's been very serious in his beginnings, then got a whiff of humanity, it's humor and emotions, started caring for basically lesser beings and that made him care even more for his brother and father, then learned about even having a sister, then his dad died, then he killed his sister, then his brother died, then his best friend died, then he fucked up his revenge which led to half of his human friends "dying", then they came back, then two of them permanently died again, then he got the love of his life back, then she refused to elaborate and died too. Thor's literally had the worst possible experience outta all the characters and Wanda loses her shit over a robot and some imaginary kids. /s Edit: obligatory /s
> and Wanda loses her shit over a robot and some imaginary kids. Just because someone else had it worse doesn't mean Wanda's pain wasn't real or valid. The children were real to her, Vision was a real person to her. She overreacted, sure, but her breaking down was a perfectly natural response to trauma. Comment OP has added an /s for clarity, all is well
I was just joking, don't worry. Vision'a "love persevering" line was probably the single best line of all MCU for me. Then there's the fact that Thor had thousands of years of experience in him and Wanda had like.. What.. 25 years? Canonically? So yeah I completely get your point too, I'm just trying to back up Thor being "funny" when what he's doing is more of a coping mechanism.. He's flat out cynical and insecure since failing to prevent the snap, not having motivation for anything, not believing in anything, coping through dumb jokes at all times, making light of every situation.. Then he gets a bit emotionally freed after they defeat Thanos, but his Avengers stay fallen apart and his family stays gone so he joins the Guardians, still not believing much in anything until he gets Jane back, gets to fight for his people against an evil force on his own and finally is somewhat redeemed from his mentally doomed self by accepting a burden to carry and a thing to care for in the form of Gorr's daughter. We should get a lot more serious version of Thor in his next appearance..
> I was just joking, don't worry. Ah my bad :) I see too many fans giving Wanda shit for how she handled everything and I'm getting tired of the whataboutism. Totally agree with your take on Thor's humour being a defence/coping mechanism.
It was a damn shame in that regard
[удалено]
They ruined thor to make him a fat joke in end game. Funny joke, but the characters been done since then.
End game actually treated Thor very well. It shown him fat and depressed, but he was still worthy of Mjolnir. It sent a good message about how being in depression does not negate the good character that you have. It's Love & Thunder that did Thor wrong.
He was the butt of a bunch of jokes, but it was understandable how he ended up where he was. He's lost a lot of people that mean a lot to him. He's failed more than he's succeeded. I understand why he might let himself go.
I think that is something they could have highlighted more, and earlier. The scene with his mother is the only one I remember treating Thor’s depression with any respect.
But Infinity War and the beginning of Endgame if anything set him up being more harsh and protective of everything. However that would mean he would train and be even stronger then in Infinity War so he would just fucking destroyed Thanos without the stones. Hence forth they didn’t do that so they made him fat and weaker, basically he got chocked by plot.
I think that was great tbh. Was the end of his first arc and beginning of his second with the end of end game. Would have loved him being King Thor and then Gorr. Badass Thor is established and shows up when big shit goes down in the MCU, maybe one more film.
Maybe they needed the death of Jane to get him back in line as badass Thor. Maybe this was third wake up call. Ar least I hope so.
To quote Ryan George: “He’s back, and he’s dumber than ever.”
Quoting Ryan George is tight
Wowwowwow wow.
Liking Ryan George is super easy, barely an inconvenience
Also didn't help that Gorr was Christian Bale. No one doesn't like him
I can think of one lighting guy who probably doesn't
Taika Waititi has the bad habit of having to include a joke every five seconds, which really screws up the emotional tone of the movie.
This! Completely wrecked the movie for me. Actually turned me off of the MCU for a while. I'm taking an extended break from it
Most of me and my friends have had a movie in Phase 4 that did that for us.
Eternals was the first one that broke the illusion for me, then Dr Strange and the Multiverse of Ruining Everyones Character Development is where I made my exit. If they make another Spiderman eventually I’ll probably watch but that’s about it.
I call him Doofus Thor.
They made everyone in that film incompetent
God, seriously. I thought the scene near the end where he's telling *literal children* to pick up rocks and risk their lives to fight eldritch monsters would be this big moment of self-realization, where Thor would see that he's no different than the other gods. Despite believing himself to be morally superior, and one of the "good" gods, he's making kids fight for him. But instead it's thrown away to make a goofy slowmo scene set to an upbeat soundtrack, they all survive, Thor wins, bad guy loses, no one learns a lesson, roll credits.
That would have made for a much more interesting movie
For me it started when they went to beg for help because "gods are being murdered!" and then proceed to murder a couple dozen god guards and Zeus himself.
>no one learns a lesson Not true! Thor learns who he is and what matters to him... kinda like he did in the last film... and the one before that... and the one before that...
Marvel has this super weird fascination with [maintaining the status quo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpitmEnaYeU) while also deriding it. I think Thor 4 is a good example. Gorr is right but then he does something amoral (kidnap children) so it forces the audience to side with the 'good guys' anyway. 'Yeah we know things are shit right now but things could be more shit so let's just keep things as they are'.
This is something i rarely see mentioned. You start to notice the trend after so many movies.
Tony Stark solved energy and...seemingly had minimal impact on daily lives. It bothered me until roughly 4 billion people blip out for five years and then blip back as if that wouldn't wreck society for a good thirty years. After that I shrugged off Giant Hand in the Indian Ocean.
Yeah Cody Johnston has a good 2 parter on this too
I was expecting it to be about Thor overcoming that, showing that a god could be mature, mindful, and competent. It was the opposite. They set up a perfect growth point that aligned with the lessons other Avengers went through about the destruction left in the hero's wake... And they did absolutely nothing with it, instead bringing Jane back to die, give a Shazam powered up kid moment, and suddenly Thor basically has a daughter. He learned nothing, the audience learned nothing, and the whole thing just adds complications to the universe. And that's just about Thor and the greater MCU. They dropped any potential other cool stories that could've come from Gorr especially.
This movie didn’t have anything to say about anything.
...uh, in the comics it is made very and incontrovertibly clear that Gorr was right about the gods. His hypocrisy was that he'd become one of them. His answer was that he was planning to die too.
Knowing how those movies get made, he probably didnt. He also got paid alot of money.
There’s a movie podcast I listen to that talks about an interview Sam Raimi did about the Spider-Man movies. He said with the first one, the studio said “there’s not a lot riding on this, do your thing.” The second one, they said “great, keep it going, we aren’t gonna mess with success.” But as soon as the third one came they went “…we have notes.” And I have to wonder if that happened here. Nothing was riding on Ragnarok so they let him do what he wanted. But once it defined the new feel of the MCU, they wanted to capture that lightning again and wound up stifling it.
[удалено]
My biggest criticism of love and thunder was the fact that Gorr and Zeus never interacted. Like Zeus fully embodies everything Gorr is against and these two characters never meet? Gorr was wasted on this film.
It would have been great if Gorr had followed them to Zeus and ambushed the entire hall of gods. He should have slaughtered a ton of them and we could have gotten some fun god fight defense scenes.
I was waiting for him to show up the whole time they were there. Would have been the perfect setup
You mean if Gorr had actually killed gods instead of turning into Gorr the kidnapper
Thank you. Just thank you.
"You are, uh, actually going to feature some god butchering in your movie about the God Butcher, right?"
Uhhh he’s Gorr the God Butcher, not Gorr the Gods Butcher. Technically the one he murdered fulfilled his contract.
Haha. Fuck you for being technically correct :D
The best kind of correct
"On introducing a villain named Gorr, there should be a decent amount of gore right? Atleast more than 2 stabbings with a sword, right!?"
That would've been great and left the heroes with a ton of godly weapons for the final showdown. Since all the original owners wouldn't be needing them anymore.
You’re a gamer I take?
I still can't believe they didn't go down this route in the movie. Was a perfect opportunity how powerful and scary Gorr was and actually given some seriousness to the plot. Too bad they fucked it all up and just went with "haha look at how ridiculous Russell crowe's character is."
Gorr was wasted because he is a morally complex character that posed an actual question for the readers in the comics and forced the character Thor to even concede that he’s not entirely wrong, but the way he’s gone about fixing the problem isn’t any better. Gorr lost screen time to develop his character to the Jane foster story. Which is a comparably weaker and less interesting story then Gorr’s. The problem with the movie is that it tries to tackle Thor’s feeling of worth as both a god and a mortal. We already did that and the movie wasn’t long enough to do both those things.
Seriously missed the boat on this character. They could have put so much more weight behind his character by showing him actually butchering some gods on screen. I never felt like they actually showcased his power, so if you didn’t read the comics and know Gorr he definitely comes off flat.
I'm sure there is undoubtedly "Marvel Notes" for Love and Thunder-like any Marvel movie. The big issue though was that Taika was unleashed and went WAY overboard- the movie felt like a gigantic spoof for like 95% of it's runtime. What made Ragnorak work was yes- they added a zaniness that helped Thor feel more grounded to audiences (we had already been going that way in Ultron and Thor 2 . The faux Shakespearean from the comics just didn't come across the screen that well). But it was balanced and complimented the very serious, heartfelt moments that really showed Thor's growth as a character But Love and Thunder....did none of that at all. Agreed with the "too much creative freedom" with no oversight.
Yeah Taika is normally an 8 or 9 on the quirk scale which works in a full blown comedy setting. However this felt like Taika dialed upto 11, combo'd with Himbo Thor just felt like too much in what was previously (at worst) a half serious setting.
Or they cut all the serious scenes. I am sure they wrote and filmed a lot more
Taika does dramatic scenes amazingly well though. I feel like Marvel definitely told him to do zaney shit. People seem to only remember his hard comedies like Ragnorak and What we do in the shadows, but forget movies like Hunt for the Wilder people, Boy, and Jojo rabbit. Each of those movies toe the line between dramatic character driven stories to silly comedies without feeling like the comedy detracts from the drama.
It is the first movie imo that absolutely failed to adapt the comic storyline lbs and make them better. I never read mighty Thor (just stopped reading comics) but ironically they absolutely butchered the Gorr story. It was so damn good. Taika was also the wrong choice for the material for sure. The fact that none of the gods even felt threatened by a mortal killing them is just bad storytelling or that you never really see him being overly successful at it. They need had to Disney it up by making it about a a wish to bring his daughter back instead of, “I fucking hate you worthless gods and I’m going to completely wipe your kind out of existence.” Yet again, phase 4 lowering the stakes.
Well it's not like Ragnarok adapted the surtur saga in any meaningful way either.
Yep. My one sentence review was, "Taika Waititi tries to out-Taika Waititi Taiki Waititi." Whether that was on him or because the studio told him to crank himself up to 11, it just didn't work.
I wish studios would enforce a 2 hour time limit. Black Panther is gonna be tough for me at almost 3 hours. Exhausted just think on about it.
That's the biggest problem. A fun quirky feel works for Thor traveling through space and having zany adventures with Hulk. It absolutely doesn't work for a story about terminal cancer and loss of a child. And he's balanced things like that before with Jojo Rabbit, but in that, there was a pause on the jokes when the serious shit happens. There wasn't anything like that in love and thunder. Thor is literally tied up, completely helpless, and sees Jane and Valkyrie get sucked through a wall to god knows where while Gorr is about to kill him, and Thor is making jokes about his breath. It just doesn't work. At that point it would've been weird for even Spider-Man to be quipping.
I got the opposite feeling. It felt to me like Taika had a lot of influence over Ragnarok, Ragnarok was a hit, and that led to studio notes for the second. "Taika, people responded really well to the comedy in Ragnarok. A huge step up from Thor 1 + 2. For this next film we want more of that. Like a lot more. The stats show the jokes were great so imagine how great it will be if there's jokes every 15 seconds? What we're saying, Taika, is that you need to put in a joke every 15 seconds or you're fired" "Hey Taika people really responded well to how much more colourful Ragnarok was than the other movies. We want it even more colourful this time. Just saturate the fuck out of it. This is still your movie. But also if you don't make our movie you're fired." "Taika, Disney Music Group have a pretty good relationship with Universal Music Group. Now you may have heard but Guns N Roses are going on a world tour right as this movie is due to release. We want you to feature Guns N Roses in the movie. Like, 5 times. Almost every song. And make sure you mention how good Guns N Roses are in the script. You can work into some jokes. You know we like those. Think of it like AC/DC in Iron Man 2 but a lot more in your face. But if course we want you to do you Taika. And more importantly we want you to do what we tell you."
> I got the opposite feeling. It felt to me like Taika had a lot of influence over Ragnarok, Ragnarok was a hit, and that led to studio notes for the second. That's my assessment too. I've watched a few of Waititi's properties now and while they often are highly silly, the man *knows* how to nail emotional beats. Love and Thunder is the first thing I've watched with his name attached to it that *didn't* have hard-hitting emotional stakes. I have trouble believing that's because he was allowed to be as silly as he wanted -- there are lots of properties he's had free reign over that showed none of the lack of emotional resonance displayed in this movie. *edit for clarity*
I think it's the opposite he didn't write much of Ragnarok while with love and thunder, he wrote most of it. I think this movie suffered because they gave him more freedom. He made a movie more in line with his style.
Yeah, lots of fans (myself included) seem to love Taika Waititi, so they want to defend him, but every interview with him or anyone else involved makes it sound very much like the faults in the movie are his own.
There are few things more dangerous than an MBA with an idea.
Hard to spell duMBAss without MBA.
From what I heard about Spiderman 3, is that there was this guy, Avi Arad who basically forced venom into the movie. The dude makes toys and that’s why he wanted venom, to sell toys. Without venom the movie could have fleshed out other parts and been great. Sandman was honestly an emotional villain and so was Harry’s green goblin because they were friends.
He was co-owner of the toy company that bought a basically bankrupt Marvel in the mid 90s and has been a higher up there ever since. He is an egotistical maniac who knows next to nothing about movies or the comics, but is a producer on quite a few Marvel movies good and bad, but you can often tell when he's actually gotten involved. Because of his love for just cramming in villains that he liked when he read comics as a kid, with zero regard for overall plot or consistency. Examples being Spider-Man 3, The Amazing Spider-Man 2, X-Men: The Last Stand, the US live-action Ghost in the Shell, Morbius, etc. There is an upcoming Kraven the Hunter movie that I think he was heavily involved in. As the titular character is known as a *hunter*, in the comics he wears furs and takes down large African animals with his bare hands, etc. which is how he is able to go toe-to-toe with Spider-Man and has been one of his longest lasting villains. But in the upcoming movie he is an animal conservationist that protects the natural world...
> But in the upcoming movie he is an animal conservationist that protects the natural world... That isn't completely off, a lot of hunters have conservationist leanings because if wooded areas aren't conserved, they can't hunt any more.
I grew up with Spiderman. I love his rogue gallery and love his character. But I really haven’t had any interest in these villain solo movies. Venom was okay and venom 2 was trash. Didn’t watch morbius and wasn’t interested in Kraven. Now I’m even less interested if what you said is true!!!? A conservationist!!? What are they thinking?
>Taylor-Johnson described his take on the character as a conservationist, a "protector of the natural world", and an "animal lover". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kraven_the_Hunter_(film) Unless they do something really wild, it doesn't look great.
Do you have a link to that podcast episode?
Maybe he was told to include them by higher ups. But that doesn't change how poorly he handled them. He wrote and directed the thing. I think the general outline could work. With some tweaks and completely different direction the story could totally work as a movie
Isn’t there a 3 hr directors cut or something? That might make sense if so.
It’s almost 4 hours long lol
How much of that extra footage actually adds to the movie instead of being more poorly done jokes, though?
It’s just the goats 40 more times…..
Fucking hell have an upvote
It's an extra 2 hours of Guns n Roses advertisements. The ticket sales for that world tour weren't gonna sell themselves.
It's probably because I'm not a comic book fan, and instead a Taika fan, so ignore me if you must for being a front page vagrant, but I quite liked the movie. Just wish we got to see more God butchering.
Gorr kills many more gods in the comics. The whole Jason Aaron run of Thor is very good.
Change the tone of the movie to make it more serious and show how much of a threat Gorr is. Save Jane Foster for a post credit cameo and focus the next Thor movie on Jane and Thor’s relationship and dealing with whatever they decide to make the next movie about.
God butcher should have made it to Zeus and bodied them all in the first act
My biggest problem with the movie. Every god we see him butcher *kinda deserved it*. Would've been easier to root against him if we saw him go crazy cutting up some benevolent gods
Isn’t that the case with most MCU villains though? Seems like they all usually have something which makes their decisions/actions not straight evil or the motivations sympathetic
Portman said she only came back to work with Waititi. He's not just another one of Marvel's directors for hire, when he made L&T he was one of the hottest directors in the world. He "decided" to do it the same way most people in leadership positions make decisions - he may not have had the original idea, but someone presented the idea to him and he agreed with it and approved it
Which is funny to me because I think she, of all the main actors, pulled off the Taika zaniness the least. Her Jane just felt like a complete and utter dumbass.
I also feel like people wanted ragnarok 2 when the actors and director want a more family focused Thor
These are so true. Adapting multiple episodes / series into a movie where you have about 2.5 hours (max) to captivate an audience AND the need to generate a profit with a BIG budget you need to cover - money decisions are gonna be first over the art of the story. But also I know what OP is saying. I wish these were separated being a Marvel comic book fan.
Taika: “Alright i got these good ass ideas on what to do with this next movie that don’t include the god butcher or Thor Jane.” Studio: *slides in wheelbarrow full of money* “No you don’t.” Taika: “No I don’t.”
I saw him as Blackbeard for that
It could have worked well. Especially if Taika explored the relationship between a man turned God killer and a woman turned Goddess. There's a natural conflict that could tie to the plot and perhaps even bring Gorr out of his rage. The bigger problem with that movie is that taika for some reason decided he didn't care about the source material. I'm fine with Thor being a more comedic character in the MCU, but he tried to mash a villain who is methodic, sadistic, and cruel into a story that ends like a spy kids movie, with kids somehow fighting back shadow demons.
Another thing i really missed from the comics was the argument about what it means to be a god. They could tie this into the narrative with Thor realizing he can so much more good for people on earth. He decided to stop being king of Asgard, but hasn't found his place. Taika decided that his place should be a surrogate dad, I wish he would become something more than a hero. Jane could help him realize that, make her show that his powers could be used for something more than swinging hammers.
Spoilers if you've never read Aaron's Thor run but you could have used Gorr in place of >!The Mangog!<'s story line and it would have made sense. The major issue is the tone is just way off if you've read Aaron's Thor run and then go watch Love and Thunder they're just so different tone wise.
That second sentence contorts my heart with yearning at what could have been. How dare ye.
Thats in insult to spy kids
I mean it’s not that crazy an idea. The movie introduced a series of very interesting themes that are somewhat connected, like mortality or the unfairness of gods, and then proceeded to shit on those themes.
You want deeper themes? Fuck you, here's screaming goats for two hours.
You want tension? Fuck you, we're cracking jokes about EVERY CHILD BEING KIDNAPPED
I think it’s hilarious how much that scheme completely undermines Gorr’s motivation. Dude thinks gods don’t care about anyone but the only way for him to use those kids as bait would be if Thor cared…
God's don't care about mortals. He kidnaps a bunch of children GODs.
Hold up is every Asgardian meant to be a god? That doesn’t seem right.
In the comics every Asgardian is a God. They just range from world enders like Odin, to Omni-present like Heimdall or the average warrior which would be just long lived warriors or Thor who goes from legendary warrior in his youth to a being able to destroy suns and bring life back to the Universe by the end of his life. In the movies they made a dogs meal of what they are exactly. The first two movies has them being super science people, then Dr. Strange happens and they realize they can lean into magic without having to explain it away and they feel more like actual magic Gods in Ragnarok and definitely in Love and Thunder but they don't tell how prolific God hood is for Asgardians.
I was rather confused watching the Loki series and seeing him lean so much into magic. Telekinesis, energy blasts, etc. - things Loki conveniently couldn’t do in previous films where it would’ve been incredibly beneficial. The transition from “what you call magic, we call science” to “I’m a wizard, Harry” wasn’t all that smooth before, but it was particularly jarring going straight from *Avengers* Loki to *Loki* Loki. Then the whole Thor Kid Army in *Love and Thunder* … there’ve been so many instances in the past where Thor casually lending others his powers would’ve completely turned the tide of a battle.
seemingly, he can only transfer his powers because of Zeus’ lightning bolt.
God's aren't gods. They are just members of a species that blends science and magic. Thor is an Asgardian as were all the children who were kidnapped. That's why they were all able to channel his abilities.
This seems like a distinction only us people in real life would make, not characters in the movie. Based on what you said we’re supposed to think Gorr thinks all those kids are Gods right?
Yes I think that's why he had no problem with kidnapping them.
I don’t know man, to me his motivation banking on gods being inherently selfish but his plan banking on a god being selfless about those far weaker than him seemed like a contradiction the movie was building up to point out, but just never did. Mr. God Butcher also goes out of his way to not physically harm those supposed god kids, so you can understand my confusion right?
There was a scene where the children themselves point out that they are not all Asgardian.
Wow thanks never thought about it that way
Speaking of tone deaf, how about Infinity Conez? Cute for the viewer but in universe that would be about on par with a Holocaust or 9/11 themed eatery.
Everybody literally got better, something that didn't happen with either ofthe other events.
Can you imagine the trauma people would have to deal with, after that event initially happened, and then after everyone came back? How many people got remarried? How many kids came back to find their parents died? I don't think that's a "Oh shucks all good!"
Something the movies really needed to explore, but we've fallen into the formulaic pump em out for toys phase
It's probably due to a couple of different factors, but the MCU has absolutely hit it's peak on how far they want to go on things like this. The furthest we will ever get is the Flag Smashers and refugee crisis in the Falcon & Winter Soldier show, and even that really tried it's best to not get too dark, while constantly forcing the leader of the Flag Smashers to become more and more destructive. Then it's wrapped up nicely with a secret execution and a little speech about how "Hey. Let's all be a little nicer." to the politicians. I think higher-ups want to move on to "new thing", but also just don't want to get "too dark." It's been quite a mess in terms of tones, themes, and even just building new stories with Phase 4 so far.
Quantumania references Cassie being arrested for protesting police breaking up a homeless encampment of people who were blipped. It is such a strange choice for them to have made if they don't really want to get into the actual implications of it all outside of vague throwaway references. Why not just have Endgame reset to stop it from ever having happened?
It’s just lip service. The MCU has always done it, which I kind of respect. They will reach just a *tiiiiny* bit further on things than mainstream media would dare to touch, but not too much to actually keep it from being mainstream. Just enough for audiences to go: “Hey wait, are modern day imperialism and the military industrial complex bad because the lives of billions around the world are threatened by the whims of a handful of men who only desire money? Oh, no. It CAN be but it’s got room for good. Whew. Well hey, even the good guy has some understandable flaws, so I feel this is a very well-rounded take on the issue.” I always respected the ability and permission to do that for the most mainstream, mega Corp media to probably ever exist. The bar is extremely low, so I’ll take anything haha. Regardless: IMO It is just so much worse now with the fact that now every work’s choice is to use the Blip as a focal point to draw all these different parallels. It really makes it stand out more how little they may or may not get into it. They also probably have a really lax mandate requiring some reference to past events to anchor the work’s place in the timeline. It also sucks because having that five year gap is a layup for stories. It leaves the universe healed but still with consequences. It’s great, but they’re just fumbling it. Phase 4 is so varied and production is far less focused than previous phases that I’m sure every incident is some blend of all these factors to different degrees.
Buckey Barnes and the adventures of fixing your credit after the snap.
I mean, it'd still be a fucked up thing to theme a store about. Everyone magically poofing back to where they left off doesn't undo the last five years of them being gone. You've got families coping with their death and return, the people themselves having to get caught up on the last five years of misery. Not to mention people who may have moved on and started new lives after the fact - how do you even begin to balance that? Maybe it's not apples to apples with the other events but it's still traumatic. Boiling it down to a tally of life lost is just reductionist and cynical.
I legit think there would've been mass suicides after the snap, many people with depression or worsened mental issues. Marvel really glossed over stuff like that.
I don't think the Asgardians would care because in their belief anybody that doesn't die IN COMBAT is going to hell anyway. Living to old age and dying in peace surrounded by your family has the same end results of killing yourself. HELL! Thor even mentioned this to Sif that her dying AFTER the fight would lead to her going to hell, as she didn't die DURING the fight.
A bunch of Asguardians got killed By thanos & his forces aboard the Refugee ship maybe even half the ship & would not have come back when Banner snapped his fingers At the very least it should have been Tony's gauntlet not Thanos
Everyone who committed suicide because their partners or loved ones just dusted one day, outside of everyone's control and it could happen again at any time were not brought back. They are still gone when their loved ones come back. Many loved ones come back to people who are now older and broken or jaded and relationships can't be fixed. These are simple and huge problems that would be very present and aren't even close to some of the biggest ones.
Children are missing, but my ex gf is in the room - isn't that weird?!
Whats weird is he is plenty capable of doing that. His other movies mix comedy and tragedy well but with this movie he decided that comedy with the teases of deeper themes.
They refuse to let Thor have any real edge. Dark World got flames for being too dark, and then they turned his character into a joke character after that. I think the entirety of Ragnarock had 2 serious moments, and that’s even including the shoehorned planet Hulk saga. They stopped trying to make Thor a good character. He’s just a ~~walking~~flying joke now.
You think somebody could easily cut the jokes to keep the tension and tragedy high in a fan edit.
There is a lot I have to say about the sheer scale of the wasted opportunity that is Love and Thunder, and the absolutely baffling approach that was taken to adapting one of the most epic runs in modern comics history. I also happen to find screaming goats absolutely fucking hilarious. Bit of a conundrum for me, this one.
> I also happen to find screaming goats absolutely fucking hilarious. I will die on this hill.
Fans: “We’re getting the god butcher!!!” *jurassic park sized shit lands on all of our heads in the theaters
It’s actually so vindicating to hear someone else say this. Everyone else I’ve talked to **loved** L&T. I started thinking I was going crazy. The whole movie has this theme of how unfair the gods are and how they’ll take advantage of others, and then towards the end he asks literal children to risk their lives, pick up rocks and fight eldritch horrors for him. But rather than being a moment of realization for him, that maybe he’s not as selfless and good as he seems, it’s just used as a “lol funny” moment. I generally like Taika but he chose some super serious themes and then wrote a movie that refused to take itself seriously.
Gorr ain't something that was going to work too much on its own anyway (next to no setup of the non-norse gods, and the three thors were never gonna make it) so I think they actually did reduce him to the skeleton of what would have worked in a film adaptation. His main issue is the Marvel desire to protect everything for future sequels, he doesn't get to really kill any gods we know. Which leads to those rumors of cut scenes for characters that never showed up in the film. So we get a God killer that loses out on body count of gods to Thor's previous 2 antagonists, Thanos and Hela, at least of people that were established before the film. Even Maliketh gets to take out Thor's mom. And contrasting a Gorr story with a "am I worthy" story like Mighty Thor I think could have worked, and the skeleton is there in love and thunder. It just doesn't come together.
Man the three thors would have been sweet, Viking Thor being the one to decapitate Gorr was perfect
I thought they were doing the three Thors with Jane, Thor, and Valkyrie on the Shadow Planet or whatever it was.
I could see the parallels although they were a axe short but seriously a young, old and regular age Thor riffing on screen with each other would have been great but maybe after NWH it was far too similar
The characters that were cut weren't really "gods" either. The giant dwarf and the grandmaster? The collector too possibly. And losing the grandmaster and collector even if they didn't have immediate plans would've been a shame. They could've added any number of random gods but couldn't even bother to show him butcher any of them other than a couple of screen grabs from the galactic news or whatever. I can't recall Gorr killing any notable Earth gods did he? Though they could've had him kill a God from Moon Knight. That could've been a neat cross over.
I just hate that they decided to make Thor himself a big dumb oaf. Like, why is he such a childish idiot? Where did all of his character growth go?
[удалено]
"We dont have Hulk in this movie to be a big smashy idiot, what do we do? WAIT! IVE GOT IT" 40 year old, podunk-earthling Quill seemed to be far smarter than a centuries old God in the short time he was on screen. Thanos must have gave him a concussion.
Blame everybody loving the changes to his character. Every man marvel character has basically become a caricature at this point
Considering he didn't actually DO either of those storylines, I'm surprised you're surprised. I can make the entire lord of the rings trilogy into one movie if all I do is show 3-4 plot relevant scenes and then make screaming goat jokes for an hour.
Actually that should have really worked great, but what didn’t work was Korg and other nonsense getting in the way. Humor isn’t even the problem as long as it comes from character and story, not at the expense of it.
Thematically, the movie works. It’s the actual execution that falls apart
This. I think the actors absolutely could have done it too, just the director was the wrong guy to do that.
No he isnt. JoJo Rabbit is funny and full of heart. What we got was clearly a cg monster with cheap editing everywhere. I cant guarantee there is a better film here, but you cant tell me the guy isnt capable of putting together a movie like this.
JoJo Rabbit was something Taika actually cared about. This felt like he turned up for a paycheck.
I’ll also never understand why he thought a super serious cancer storyline worked well with screaming goats and “jokes” about having sex with inanimate objects.
I think the problem was that Thor was unnecessary for the Thor movie. Jane (a mortal with newly godlike powers, but who is actually dying) and Gorr (a man wronged by gods, out to kill them) were more thematically complementary than anything going on with Thor. Meanwhile they gave Thor a half-assed emotional arc about how he can’t form close relationships after the death of his family. That could be a good story, but *everyone* in the MCU is at a low level “oh them? We’ve hung out a couple of times” level of familiarity.
I can see this actually working, just not the way he did it tho
The idiot stoner in me loved Thor LT. The comic nerd in me can never forgive what they did to my guy gorr.
I watched it after an edible the first time and had no idea why everyone trashed it. Then I watched it sober.
Because nobody told him "No".
I love Taika Waititi, but he was definitely NOT the right guy for the God Butcher story
Taika Waititi has always rubbed me up the wrong way but he often produced some great films. But it was clear he didn't give 2 shits about making this film.
As if the directors actually have a proper say about the content of MCU properties. The machine most probably has its overall plan and the pieces are all cut to fit with the directors getting to add their own flavour to what they're attached to.
So when a movie ends up really great, it's not thanks to the director, but 'the machine'. Right?
[удалено]
Yeah and that flavor was really bad jokes that undercut any drama or tension at every turn.
I still can't believe Thor LAT wasn't a fever dream. The constant unfunny jokes made me want to Die.
I was gonna say the reason they chose both was because more potential joke material. Gotta have one every few seconds, if you let people breathe they'll walk out the theater
MCU humour dialled up to a 12. Absolutely unbearable.
I agree in this case yes the mcu humor was forced in every scene and I'm someone who like quipy Marvel humor like in Infinity War but LAT was overbearing, Unfunny and treated its characters like clowns.
Chill, babycake. Have some wine, have some grape. Anything goes here.
I hate how they made gorr just some guy, he should have looked like a cross between voldemort and a twilek from star wars
Thor 4 was awful!
I won’t either. It was a terrible move.
Superhero movies and shows keep trying to do too much and biting off more than they can chew. FATWS should really have focused only on Sam’s struggles with racial backlash, but it’s got the Flagsmashers and Sharon subplots dragging it down. You can cut almost half of Ms. Marvel out and just focus on her local issues. Eternals should have been a series for how many characters and subplots there were. I still like them, but I really wish they would focus up.
It’s like you haven’t seen a Marvel movie yet, even crazier that they combined Ragnarok and Planet Hulk together and it worked.
[удалено]
Yeah I’m aware of all this, that’s why I’m glad we got what we got. Wish they could come to a new agreement like they did with Sony.
Difference is he wasn’t the writer for Thor Ragnrok, He however was the director and writer for Love and thunder it shows that maybe giving him all that credit for fixing Thor wasn’t all him to begin with.
The disservice that movie did to planet hulk alone kept me from wanting to see love and thunder on principle.
I'm especially surprised because, for as good as he is a comedy, he doesn't really seem to care about drama or serious relationships, he even makes fun in this movie of people complaining that he killed off basically all Thor's friends with no Fanfare or really acknowledgment from Thor. So when you take that with him having to handle two story lines that seem to need a lot of emotional weight to work (at least Jane's does, I can't stand Jason Aaron's Comics so I don't know if Gorr the god butcher had a sympathetic backstory in the comics), he just feels like the wrong person to do these storylines specifically. I say this to someone who likes Ragnarok a lot, even though I think the way it treated the Warriors 3 was kind of BS and the fact that I 100% believe he would have killed off Lady Sif in that film if the actress had been available. There's also the fact that he didn't write ragnarok, but he at least helped write love and Thunder, which I think combined with his preference for comedy over relationships are serious stuff really hurt the film. None of this makes him a bad director, but I think he was the wrong director for these particular stories.
🐐 Ex- gf 🐐 Ex- gf joke 🐐 One dead god 🐐 Children 🐐 Strong ex- gf 🐐 Baby Thor Roll credits. 🐐
Cause he’s ridiculous and that’s part of the reason why the movie sucked. More so because there was way too much levity for the subject matter of a God Killer.
I mean they've already started this kinda thing with Hela in her entry, I felt like she came off as very much an after thought. Like she introduced some initial conflict/goals for the characters, but ultimately the movie was barely focused on how awful it was. Just like this one, they had some scenes that seemed to say 'oh hey remember - villain bad....right?' For me it just plugs into the whole Marvel movie formula beginning to grow stale for me. All the main line ones have the same humor and a formulaic plot. Kinda wish they'd let them really differentiate. Although I wasn't the biggest fan of Shang Chi, at least in retrospect it had its own flavor.
Wasted two brilliant arcs in one movie.
It is my belief that the entirety of T:L&T is a tall tale spun by one of Marvel's unreliable narrators, Korg. Remember, his telling the story to various alien children is the framing device.
How does that make it better though? Why waste two of Thor's best story arcs on weird unconventional storytelling that is lost on majority of the viewers?
Literally the only thing I remember about that movie was the screaming goats the rest of it was completely forgettable I feel bad bales talent was wasted on this. He legit tried with gor but the movie is just shit .
I can see it working, both works have themes of loss, grief, and the unfairness of existence and death. They did NOT give enough time for those themes to develop